Downtown is Alive With Stoner Rock and Death Metal

Whenever I get depressed thinking about the rise of EDM, all I have to do is put this column together to realize that, hey, electric guitars ain’t going anywhere. Indeed, there’s plenty of live rock music happening in this city every night.

Crazy Chief wars its way into the remodeled Bunkhouse Saloon at 9 p.m. August 29. The local stoner-rock band’s “Angel Dust,” directed by Denis Bosnjakovic, recently won first place in the Las Vegas Film Festival’s Best Music Video category. And rightly so, since the video is a gritty barbarian-and-maiden mini-epic put to guitarist Jesse Amoroso’s sword-slinging guitar riffs and singer Dan Conway’s shamanistic voice. (You can check out “Angel Dust” on Vimeo.) The band is even more awesome in the sonic flesh, so I can’t wait to hear how they sound in the new Bunkhouse. Opening for Crazy Chief is versatile power-pop rocker Rob Lyons, whose cool new disc, When It Haunts You,I reviewed in Vegas Seven last month.

Straight out of Tempe, Arizona, Americana roots-rock group Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers peel into House of Blues at 8 p.m. August 30. The band is touring in support of its seventh studio album, The Independent, which earned positive press for its meat-and-potatoes approach to rock ’n’ roll. My favorite track on it is likely “Ain’t Got the Words,” a punchy little rave-up about being left inarticulate in the face of life’s relentless inadequacies. I doubt it would be an overestimation to call Clyne & Co. the Southwest’s most popular unsigned band, since they continue to play so many larger venues in this part of the country. Back in the day we called this kind of music “college rock,” and I could use some this weekend, for sure.

Here’s a loud and very aggressive show that’s no doubt going to blow the roof off Triple B—and perhaps the entire Fremont East district. Topeka, Kansas-spawned technical death-metal band Origin is slated to bring its riotous grooves to Triple B at 8 p.m. August 31. Origin’s sixth disc, Omnipresent, arrived in July, yet another salvo of rapid-fire drumming and mind-bending guitar solos and guttural vocals. I never expected Triple B to showcase a band with this much ferocity and unhappiness, so I feel a little bit better about the whole Downtown gentrification issue. Also on this eardrum-shattering bill: King Parrot, Beyond Creation and Your Chance to Die.